Yet another noob diary

or,
"Sleep Well Again TONIGHT
Get your {KeyWord:sleeping caps} Now
100% NATURAL GUARANTEED"

Dynamic Keyword Insertion baby.

Also, you're probably screwed with this campaign. You've got history working against you now. Google is deciding your stuff sucks and isn't wanting to serve it. You'll probably be better off starting over and learning from your mistakes.

I think the ads are the biggest problem with your campaign, but that's just a guess.

Try this if you want to save it. Only keep keywords that had really high CTR. Like over 10%.
Then also keep the keywords that actually converted. You want more keywords, make variations on the ones that converted. You can afford to pay for those ones. Raise your bids at a keyword level for the converting keywords.

For god's sake read some articles on writing ads. "won't kill you" is not a call to action.

@errodr Don't want freebie hunters? Put 'free' in your negative keywords list. Problem solved. But considering this is a free trial continuity offer, maybe that isn't such a good idea. These people that convert may be freebie hunters. You might be scaring off your customers.
 


Thanks DangerBrown and some_guy that was some helpful advice. I think I'll start anew. If I only keep the keywords with decent CTR at this point, I'll be left with almost nothing in terms of volume.

So, new LP, new ads, and at least somehow using the data I accumulated to gear my new campaign towards the keywords a bit more efficiently.

Again thanks - I'll be updating this thread as soon as I get the new campaign/page online.
 
errodr said:
some_guy,

I thought it was a good idea to put a little something in the ad about costs to deter freebie hunters? Is my thinking wrong on that?

Thanks...
Click to expand...

TBH I don't know for sure, test it and find out. Just adding my opinions and how I would think about it. You are selling. Morals, ethics, truth can all go out the window.
 
mprey A word of warning. Each keyword in your account has a history which will carry into other campaigns/adgroups in the same account. So If you are starting over, it should either be in a new niche (best idea) or in a different adwords account.

If you stick to the same niche using the same keywords, you may find it an uphill battle.
 
Just updating on what I've been up to...

Due to time constraints I wasn't able to do a whole lot lately so everything was lying around kinda dead. I'm getting into it again now.

I've had a brief stint in the last 2 days doing email submits behind current event polls and promoting these on forums, which wasn't very successful - I got a considerable amount of hits, but very few click throughs (I was surprised that people are even hesistant just to click "yes" or "no") and a single whopping conversion of $1.45. I'm sure there is some money to be made somewhere in that, but I'm not the one to say where. But I think I'll keep this going as a side thing as it's fairly easy to set up and maybe I'll stumble upon a winner at some point.

Regarding my old LP/PPC efforts. I will try to get the campaign going one more time with my existing Adwords history.
First, I'll be throwing the LP out to the public that I've been using all along, because I'll switch to a completely new one anyway: http://www.annasinsomniacure.info
This one was also featured in SEO_Mike's NE3 LP vid and I got some fairly positive comments too, but it just wouldn't convert - my CTR rate was horrid. Anyone got some suggestions, so I can perhaps learn in the future?

Finally, if I'm not seeing positive results from PPC with my new LP, I'll switch niche and promotion tactics. I'll be building a content-based website from scratch promoting one or two products and getting traffic solely through SEO. I've done this before, the problem was, I used Clickbank products as well as a niche that doesn't really have any "urgent buyers". So next time, I'll take a CPA offer in the health niche, perhaps. I'll see.

The reason for doing SEO is simply, I'm running out of funds for PPC as I'm soon moving to another country and I need every spare coin. But I'll of course still keep working on my AM efforts, so that's how I'm gonna do it!
 
mprey said:
Just updating on what I've been up to...

Due to time constraints I wasn't able to do a whole lot lately so everything was lying around kinda dead. I'm getting into it again now.

I've had a brief stint in the last 2 days doing email submits behind current event polls and promoting these on forums, which wasn't very successful - I got a considerable amount of hits, but very few click throughs (I was surprised that people are even hesistant just to click "yes" or "no") and a single whopping conversion of $1.45. I'm sure there is some money to be made somewhere in that, but I'm not the one to say where. But I think I'll keep this going as a side thing as it's fairly easy to set up and maybe I'll stumble upon a winner at some point.

Regarding my old LP/PPC efforts. I will try to get the campaign going one more time with my existing Adwords history.
First, I'll be throwing the LP out to the public that I've been using all along, because I'll switch to a completely new one anyway: Anna’s Insomnia Cure
This one was also featured in SEO_Mike's NE3 LP vid and I got some fairly positive comments too, but it just wouldn't convert - my CTR rate was horrid. Anyone got some suggestions, so I can perhaps learn in the future?

Finally, if I'm not seeing positive results from PPC with my new LP, I'll switch niche and promotion tactics. I'll be building a content-based website from scratch promoting one or two products and getting traffic solely through SEO. I've done this before, the problem was, I used Clickbank products as well as a niche that doesn't really have any "urgent buyers". So next time, I'll take a CPA offer in the health niche, perhaps. I'll see.

The reason for doing SEO is simply, I'm running out of funds for PPC as I'm soon moving to another country and I need every spare coin. But I'll of course still keep working on my AM efforts, so that's how I'm gonna do it!
Click to expand...

Which script do you use for the redirect when they try to leave?
 
So,

Update...

I've been rather productive even though I'm not quite going anywhere yet. First I prepared a new campaign - new vertical, new offer, new landing page. I promised myself I am going to stick with this vertical and offer (if possible) until I can make it work. I think I can, I just don't know whether I have the budget to test enough to break even.

I took a good look at the competition, wrote up a completely new LP and I'm pretty happy with it. It should work a LOT better than my old one. I can't wait to see how it performs.

...problem is I can't start my campaign yet. CPC bids for my new vertical are pretty brutal in Adwords. I don't quite have the balls to start bidding $1.50+ per click as I'm just putting my LP out there without any optimization yet. Nor do I have the budget - got around $200 to burn in total. And that's gonna get burnt up quickly this way...

I would have tried my luck on Adcenter, but the thing is - I don't have a credit card yet (not very widespread in the country I live in). I ordered a prepaid credit card which is apparently gonna arrive in 2 weeks, but...this means I can't start my campaign until then either.

Anyone got an idea of what I could do during this time? How should I go about this considering my limited budget?

In the worst case - I also set up a new SEO project for myself to plug away on for the times where I can't afford PPC. So I'll be slowly filling that with content first, then doing the backlink shenanigans, and hopefully I'll see some traffic. I'm not rushing it though, my focus is still PPC...
 
Mprey, If I had only a very limited PPC budget like $200. I'd suggest things like zip/email submits.

Keep your payouts low like $6 and under with offers that don't require credit cards. This way, you can spend $10 and have an idea of profitablilty right away. It will be easier to find a winner with less money on these kinds of offers.

If you spend twice the offer value without a conversion, stop and try something else.
 
Thanks for your advice.

But yeah, as I wrote in one of my earlier entries I already tried email submits once...and the results were pretty bad...I was pushing current event polls leading to email submits. Do you think I should keep trying that? I'm just scared that I would be burning up the little budget I *do* have too quickly - and then I'm left with nothing.

At least if I do rebills and manage to pull in a conversion here or there I make back more...or am I really wrong?
 
mprey,

Well, if you make a successful campaign, then you are right. But if I were going to start a new rebill campaign, I'd spend at least $50/day. Probably I'd spend more like $100/day to start. I don't consider $200 enough to run a rebill campaign.

Stick with short forms with no credit cards. You tried 1 thing....not enough. Next time, try something very different from the last time. Point is that you can dedicate $10 to a zip submit campaign and have an idea of it's viability. The higher the CPA/CPL, the more you need to spend on your initial test run to know if there is hope for it.

Lastly, Google is slapping the shit out of rebills lately. So considering your plan to run Adwords, I'd suggest you don't try rebills at the moment.
 
Thanks - I guess you're right.

I think what I'll do is split my budget, put something away to try my rebill LP with when I finally can use Adcenter, in the hopes that clicks would be cheaper there and maybe that allows me to test a little more there with my existing budget.

And I'll take the other part of my budget and try to succeed with email submits. Will let you know how it'll go.
 
Okay, so basically I'm going through a phase of frustration right now...

What happened since last time?

I tried to play the email submits game again, but failed. Seems like people are pretty wary about those offers now. No matter how many clicks I throw at them, I can get maybe 2 conversions for 100 clicks.

So I went to Adcenter and checked out some viable keywords for the new rebill LP I had created. Realized that this vertical is insanely competitive and I'd be paying 1 to 1.50 per click minimum? Couldn't afford that with my limited budget...

So what I did was, I took the layout and idea of my existing LP and applied it to my old vertical (which this thread had been about up till now), rewrote the copy and just refitted the whole LP to my old offer. Threw around 65 clicks at it. The CTR of my new LP turned out to be a LOT better than the one of my old LP - 35-40% vs. <10% - but people still didn't want to buy. Didn't get a single conversion and honestly, became a bit paranoid about the MSN/rebills banning talk. So I paused my campaign.

I tried my luck with Facebook. And I kind of like it because of the way you can select specific demographics. Of course the whole ad approval thing is a huge clusterfuck, but that's material for another thread.

On Facebook I tried the following so far:

-Mobile campaign (international, that 'Love crush' kind of shit, targeted at 13 to 17 year olds). This turned out to be really promising at first! I did CPM and got around 10 to 15 clicks per 1,000 so I was paying a tiny CPC. Wow, people were clicking!

Except, of course, that out of the 130 clicks I eventually sent to it, I didn't get a single conversion.

-Last night I also tried a dating campaign. 10,000 impressions, 2 clicks so that didn't go so well.

-Also tried to dabble in the IQ stuff but that shit is getting disapproved instantly no matter how many times I try. Why? I thought Facebook specifically allowed it. Are you supposed to direct link to that, or do it via a LP?

So basically, I feel a little lost now. When I started this I knew I wasn't gonna be a baller in 5 days, but after almost 2 months and not seeing *any* kind of return (well, a $35 conversion and some change in email submits, but around $200 losses in PPC) I feel pretty frustrated. I know people say "Stick to an offer" but that's difficult if I don't even see a single conversion on most of the things I do.

If anyone has any advice for me I would be really grateful. I'm not gonna give up anytime soon, but I simply don't know what to do at this point.
 
I stuck with Facebook and finally, after 2-3 months dabbling in AM, I got my first winner campaign yesterday. Yay :D Gives me some hope that I can really do it.

Was promoting a zip submit. How? Found a current issue that caters to a very specific, but also large demographic. Targeted it via keywords. Then designed a poll around the topic, which lead to a somewhat related item.

"Spent" $45, made $108. Since I'm running my campaign off coupon credit, this is pure profit, but even if it was actual money involved, it's a 100%+ ROI. Not bad, even though that money is of course chump change.

What I still lack the balls to do is just keep that campaign running. Seeing my first profits, I developed a sort of paranoia and refreshed my tracking every 5 clicks to see where I stand. Probably not a healthy thing to do. So basically I kept just running it for a short while and then pausing it again during those last 2 days, because I also read that running an ad too often (especially in a targeted demographic) ruins its effectiveness.

When I ran it this evening I wasn't quite as profitable as yesterday so I'm sort of scared it's going downhill again. Attempts to repeat my success with different audiences have proven unsuccessful so far...but at least I'm getting somewhere.
 
Have you tried iframing the offer? it works wonder to me. Use dynamic landing page by Speed*P*PC can do you good too. I know it works for me.
 
Mprey, are you kidding me?

Why on earth would you pause a profitable campaign? Run it until it doesn't make money anymore. I could understand backing off if you lose profitability, but not running with a money maker is crazy.
 
One more thing Mprey, I seem to remember something about you having issues with getting a credit card. If that is the reason you are trying to maximize roi, maybe you can get your network to pay you with an AmEx gift card. Some of them use these as rewards and it wouldn't hurt to ask.
Ask for an early payout on some kind of card so you can keep your campaign running. You never know. They might say yes.
 
Hi DangerBrown, thanks again for your advice. The "keeping the campaign running" thing is a psychological issue I think, haha. As in, I'm fearing if I let it run through the night that profitability would suddenly drop and I'm not there to stop the train wreck, or something.

But of course you are right! I'll just keep it running for longer periods although yesterday, was mentioned, wasn't quite as good as the day before. I think I'm getting shaved already, but if it stays at this level I would still make about 80-90% ROI.

I also tried to optimize my ad copy by trying out some other ads but the funny thing is they all had a catastrophic CTR. It's really just this one ad that does well, even though it's not extremely different from the ones I wrote afterwards. Strange.

Oh and thanks about the credit card thing, it is solved for now, I've got a virtual one that is tied to my debit account and which works with all the big PPC networks as well as Facebook. I'll get a proper one as well eventually, but I'll wait until I make consistent profit (and also, until I've moved to another country which I'll be doing in less than a month).

Thanks for all your help guys! I'll keep you posted.
 
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